


The Note

by TheDarkPrince



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt John Watson, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23375317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkPrince/pseuds/TheDarkPrince
Summary: After the return of Sherlock Holmes life seems to have gone back to normal.A young man presents a new case to the crime solving duo, involving a suicide with seemingly no victim to be found.Sherlock Holmes takes on the case and it all really does seem like nothing has changed at all.At least on the surface.John, however, is overflowing with confusing emotions on the inside, not that he'd let anyone ever see.Not that Sherlock already saw.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to place this in season 3 between episodes 1 and 2.  
> This is my first time uploading to ao3, so I don't really know what I'm doing but since I'm sitting at home quarantined anyway I sure have the time to figure it all out.

# The Note

##  Chapter 1

### The Client

It had been an ordinary afternoon thus far, if one were to call anything that happened at 221B Baker street ordinary.

Sherlock Holmes had been sitting at his laptop for many hours, looking at one thing or the other, John had learned not to ask after a recent lecture on different types of leather, depending on animal, country, manufacturer and pretty much any other factor you could imagine.

John attempted to focus on his book. He had picked it up from the store because it had looked interesting in the moment and he was damned if he didn’t at least attempt to read what he bought.

His mind, and eyes for that matter, however, kept drifting back to Sherlock Holmes, sitting and scrolling at his desk.

It had barely been a month since his miraculous return and something in John’s brain still hadn’t processed that his friend, Sherlock Holmes, was in fact not dead at all.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He went through all the stages of grieve, for what? On the other hand, he _had_ begged Sherlock to come back and not be dead.

Mary had insisted John go and spend some time with him, to let everything set in, or so she said, (However John also suspected she just wanted some time to plan the wedding without his input.) but spending time with Sherlock Holmes was not always an easy task, and most certainly not always as exciting as it may seem.

Good, exciting cases were rare, you know the ones with a possibility of one self’s death.

He went back to reading. Something about two women changing the world, he wasn’t too sure anymore.

“Boys is your doorbell broken?”, Mrs. Hudson asked gently, knocking on the apartment door as she opened it.

“I didn’t hear anything. Sherlock?”, John said eagerly, happy that the silence was over.

“Depends, did we get a new doorbell sometime between Monday and today?”, Sherlock mumbled.

“There’s a young man who wants to speak to you”, Mrs. Hudson announced.

And indeed, there he was, a rather short young man in his early twenties sheepishly looking into the apartment.

“Sorry, is this not a good time?”, he asked.

“No no, please do come in”, John answered, anticipating a distraction from the strange atmosphere that had built up in the apartment.

He then quickly put his book down, got up and set up the usual seating arrangement for clients, gesturing for the young man to sit down.

The young man did not do so.

“You’re him, aren’t you?”

Sherlock Holmes finally looked up from his laptop screen.

“You’re Mister Sherlock Holmes.”

He looked the boy up and down.

A sleep deprived foreign student (the slight accent suggesting German but definitely spent a lot of time talking to native speakers) stressed about missing deadlines (obviously staying up all night to work on either a paper or studying for an important exam). Most likely owns a cat or is close to someone with a cat (why else would there be cat hair on his chest), smokes roll up cigarettes (Sherlock knew the exact brand by smell, of course) and had stopped crying only a couple of minutes ago (either that or he came to visit a private detective right after smoking a blunt and just happened to have a runny nose).

“Sit”, Sherlock suggested and went back to staring at his screen.

The young man took off his jacket and scarf, putting them on the backrest of the chair and finally sitting down.

John sat back down in his armchair as well.

They both looked to Sherlock.

“Please, you can start I’m listening”, he said after a while.

Mrs. Hudson watched the scene for a bit, then quietly shut the door behind her, they always seemed to forget she was still there as soon as the clients sat down.

The young man seemed to have swallowed his tongue, since all he was doing was staring at Sherlock Holmes with a mixture of disbelief and admiration and a slight spark of hope.

“You can start by telling us your name”, John said.

“Of course”, he snapped out of his trance, “sorry I should have introduced myself. My name is Oliver Klein-”

“Alright Oliver, please do tell us what brought you here”, Sherlock interrupted.

“It’s about my friend, he disappeared about a week ago. Police thinks it was suicide”, Oliver started to explain.

“Why do they think that?”, John asked, making sure he put all his focus on the young man.

Hearing the word suicide sent chills down his spine and made his hands feel cold. 

“They found a note in his room.”

Sherlock, remaining at his desk, now slightly turned his head towards the client.

“But I don’t believe it was suicide. It could not have been.”

“You think he was murdered?”, John asked again.

“I don’t know”, Oliver looked down to the floor, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

“How did he die?”, Sherlock Holmes asked, stood up and started to pace slowly around the room.

“I don’t know”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”, Sherlock sounded almost accusatory.

“You see, Mister Holmes”, Oliver looked up at the detective, “there was no body”

“No body?”, Watson asked again.

“No body at all. They have been looking for a week now and nothing. Why would somebody write a suicide note and then make sure the body isn’t found?”

“Maybe he jumped into the River? Could take a while to find him there”, John suggested.

“No”, Sherlock mumbled, “police have already thoroughly searched the river, that’s the first place you would look for the corpse of a suicide victim that can’t be found. After a week you’d think they would find something, no? Unless of course he ended up in some back alley but even then eventually someone would have reported a dead body.”

“That’s what I thought”, Oliver added, “plus Matt’s note”, he paused, fumbling with something in his jacket pocket, “it was so strange, it does not sound like him at all”

“Do you have the note?”, Sherlock asked.

“I think the police still have it, but I did take a picture when I first found it”, Oliver got his phone out.

  
  
“Here”, he gave the phone to John.

Sherlock hurried over to where John was sitting, leaning over his shoulder and reading along.  
  
  


_I don’t know how but_

_I can’t hide my true feelings_

_Believe me I tried_

_This is not easy_

_My life has been a challenge_

_Dead I shall be found_

The detectives face scrunched up. He tried putting different words together in different ways but none of them seemed to make sense.

He glanced over to Oliver.

“If you’re looking for a hidden message you’re out of luck”, he then said and slowly made his way back over to his laptop to continue his endless scrolling.

John took a deep breath when he gave Oliver his phone back. Hope had been drained from his face and all that was left was the miserable look of despair. The young man stared at the floor, visibly tearing up.

“You won’t take my case?”, he managed to say.

“I’m sorry to say there probably isn’t even a case to begin with”, Sherlock answered.

It was silent for a moment.

“I understand, sorry for wasting your time”, Oliver quickly gathered his belongings and ran out of the apartment without looking back.

“You can’t be serious”

“Hm?”

“Sherlock!”

“John, I’ve looked at the note, I tried looking for a hidden message but there was none”, the detective looked over to his friend, “most likely the police are just slow and haven’t found a body yet but I’m sure in a couple of days they will.”

“And what if they don’t?”

Sherlock now _really_ looked at John.

His friend’s eyes were wide open, his fists clenched and his entire body tense. He was breathing heavily and then just slightly nodded his head.

Sherlock’s gut was telling him he had said or done something incredibly stupid, incredibly insensitive. Had he made John angry?

And while he was realizing that, John had already jumped up, grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the apartment and out the front door.

“Hey, those things could kill you, you know?”

Oliver did not look amused about John’s attempt to start up a conversation.

“Okay, listen, Sherlock Holmes is a bastard”, John proclaimed, “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m sure you’ve been hearing that a lot recently, but I mean it.”

“Thank you”, Oliver answered, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“I know we just met but if you need someone to talk to, feel free to come by for a cup of tea.”

The young man cracked the faintest of smiles.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Will that change anything?”

“I’ll make sure it does.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter dedicated to my good friend callmefromouterspace

# The Note

## Chapter 2

### The Police

The cab ride was quiet.

When John came back to the apartment Sherlock had already put on his coat and other than Sherlock calling out “Taxi” neither of them had said anything for the past 10 minutes.

Eventually they arrived at Scotland Yard.

“Yeah, yeah, hang on can we please discuss this later”, Detective Inspector Lestrade was on the phone.

“I know this is important, it’s important to me as well, please just listen for a moment.”

He seemed to have been interrupted by the person on the other line when he noticed the two men walking towards his office.

“Listen, we’ll talk about this later. I’ll call you back. And when I say I’ll call you back, I mean _I’ll_ call you back. I’m going to hang up now.”

And so, he did.

Sherlock made a mental note of what he had just heard.

“How can I help you gentlemen?”

Sherlock was already about to open his mouth when John interjected:

“A young man came by the apartment today and asked about a suicide”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that”

“The young man’s name was Oliver Klein and- “

John was interrupted.

“Matthew Clare, 22 years old, student at the Birkbeck University of London, went missing about a week ago the police think it was suicide”, Sherlock summarised.

Both John and Lestrade knew better than to ask how he knew all of this.

“Matthew Clare? I suppose I could check, what’s the problem?”, Lestrade stood up and leaned against his desk, arms crossed.

John subconsciously also crossed his arms; Sherlock made a note of that as well.

“Our client does not believe it was suicide”

“Well, we found a note”

“But no body”, John added.

Lestrade shifted his eyes between Sherlock, who was standing there with his usual furrowed brows and hands behind his back, and John, who’s face was strict and his posture straight, like a man who just caught his teenager sneaking back home at 3 am. 

“I can get you the whole police report if you want, but…”, Lestrade suggested, his voice got quieter towards the end of the sentence.

He had realized the true meaning behind the visit.

A supposed suicide, a cryptic last message, a devastated friend left behind.

“I’ll go, see if I can find that report”, Lestrade then added and left the room.

John loosened his posture just a bit and looked over to Sherlock, who swiftly averted his eyes.

“What made you change your mind?”, John asked.

Uncomfortable silence filled the room as John stared at Sherlock and Sherlock, well, stared at nothing, just straight ahead.

The lower half of his face was hidden by his collar and scarf.

John wasn’t going to let this question go unanswered, so he just kept staring and Sherlock felt the gaze on his face.

After a while he finally gave an answer:

“Why does it matter?”

Unsatisfying, John thought. Very unsatisfying. 

He sharply exhaled, trying to convey something along the lines of _you’re unbelievable and not in a good way_ or _why do I even bother with you, you absolute asshole._

John looked to the side and took a few steps, putting some distance between the two of them.

He tried to breathe as calmly as possible.

This entire situation, Sherlock being back and acting like nothing had happened or changed, not explaining things to John and being his usual arrogant self, even the fact that they were back standing in Lestrade’s office together, it was all way too much, it made John furious.

He had tried his best to just be happy about his friend being back, he thought he had forgiven him after what had happened in the underground tunnels, it really had felt like he did. He had really missed him and everything that came along with being by his side.

But it wasn’t all as simple as _life goes on_ , even though he wished it was.

Sherlock lives, means John Watson lives.

But John Watson had already moved on and kept on living with Sherlock gone and his mind and heart were both overflowing. He was sure it wouldn’t take much now for him to just loose his mind.

“I took the case because I do find it strange that there was no body”, Sherlock said.

John turned back around to face him, nodded and pressed his lips together.

“Alright, so”, Lestrade walked back into his office with a rather slim looking file.

“We don’t have much as of now”, he said, “but you’re welcome to take a look.”

He handed the file to Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes opened the file, quickly skimmed over the official protocol and then proceeded to inspect the pictures taken at the crime scene.

Suddenly he looked up.

“You’re sure there is no body to be found?”, he asked.

Lestrade shrugged.

“So far we haven’t found anything”

Sherlock smirked slightly and handed the file back to Lestrade.

“That’ll be all. John, I’ll meet you back at Baker Street, I have some errands to run first.”

And with a swift turn he was already headed out.

“John”, Lestrade said as soon as he thought Sherlock to be out of hearing distance.

“Yeah?”

“You know, it’s been a shock for all of us and I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to, you know, process it all.”

“I appreciate it”, John answered.

They both forced an awkward smile and said their goodbyes.

John had needed almost ten minutes to get a cab to stop for him.

_Errands_ he thought.

Sherlock must have spotted something. John felt both left out and relieved that Sherlock decided to take the case after all.

He checked his phone.

A new message from Marry.

  
  
_“Hey! Just wondering how you two are getting along. I’ll have dinner ready at 7, if you want to join. Love you x”_

John smiled. Mary really had been the greatest thing that could have happened to him in those two years.

He looked out of the window.

The cab had already almost arrived at Baker Street.

Why was he even going back to Baker Street? He should just go home to Mary and help her cook. He needed a break from the confusing stream of thought and emotions he had surrounding this place, Sherlock Holmes, all of it.

When the cabbie pulled up he already opened his mouth as if to instruct him to keep driving, when he suddenly spotted someone standing by the front door.


End file.
